China to Start U.S. Channel as State Media Takes Culture Abroad

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- China will start airing a 24-hour
television channel to homes in New York in the first quarter,
the nation’s latest effort to expand state-controlled media
overseas as it seeks to wield greater cultural influence.

“It’s our role to propagate information about China
overseas,” Yan Xinxia, a director at the State Council
Information Office’s China Internet Information Center, told
reporters in Hong Kong today. The center will partner with CMMB
Vision Holdings Ltd. for the TodayChina channel, which will be
distributed free using digital TV technology in New York City.

China is expanding the reach of state media overseas and
strengthening control of local television and Internet content
as President Hu Jintao seeks to curb the spread of foreign
influence on Chinese society. The West is using cultural means
to divide China, which needs to be alert to this threat, Hu said
in comments published this week.

“International forces are trying to Westernize and divide
us by using ideology and culture,” Hu said in an October speech
that was reprinted as a signed essay in Qiushi, a magazine
backed by the ruling Communist Party, and published on the
government’s website on Jan. 1.

The new channel will feature news and entertainment content
in English and Chinese with English subtitles, CMMB Vision
Chairman Charles Wong said. China’s government supports state
media projects to expand overseas, Yan said. The China Internet
Information Center offers content in 10 languages, she said.

CMMB Vision climbed 1.6 percent to 6.4 Hong Kong cents at
the close of Hong Kong trading. The stock has lost 26 percent in
the past year, compared with a 21 percent decline for the
benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Following Xinhua

In 2010, China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency started
broadcasting a 24-hour TV channel overseas and the Ministry of
Commerce funded production of commercials aired on Time Warner
Inc.’s CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp. that year as the
government sought a greater voice internationally.

Broadcasters in China must cut the number of entertainment
shows during prime time by more than two-thirds, Xinhua reported
this week, citing the State Administration of Radio, Film and
Television. The government is seeking to assert more control of
the media and Internet as it grapples with rising social unrest
over work conditions and government corruption.

Internet Surveillance

The country with the most cultural influence will gain a
competitive advantage in a globalized world, in which people are
exposed to many ideologies and values, Hu said in the speech
that Qiushi published as an essay.

China’s system of Internet surveillance, also known as the
“Great Firewall,” requires domestic operators including Baidu
Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. to self-censor content deemed
unacceptable to the government, and blocks overseas services
such as Google Inc.’s YouTube, Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

China had 485 million Internet users at the end of June,
according to government data. That’s more than the combined
populations of the U.S. and Japan.

The China Internet Information Center, founded in 2000,
operates the China.com.cn portal, and has more than 40 employees
working to produce multimedia content including video, Yan said.